Of course I almost didn’t realize it. I almost came here to write a negative review of the game. That initial thought came from a late night game session with my five-year-old while we were packing before moving to a new house. It was late, we were both tired, and it turns out we played the game very wrong.

Fast forward a bit. We’re in the new house, and now my other 2 older kids and the five-year-old want to play. I grumble, but accept. I re-read the rules. Oh man. I played this wrong the last time! We then managed to have a very enjoyable 15-20 minutes playing a 4-player game.

In Taxi Wildlife you’re trying to get the most route cards and animals. You do this by drawing duel cards and trying to snatch an animal blindly out of a bag with one hand. The animal needs to match one of the 3 route cards currently on the table. Match the animal, get the card. Of course the card also need to match on of the ends of your existing route, or it can’t be played. Also, if the actual animal is on the card (not just the picture on the sign) then you get to take it instead of putting it back in the bag. This further complicates things for other players since there’s only 2 of each animal in each bag.

It’s fast paced, super easy, and a lot of fun to go digging around the bags for animals. You play through the duel deck 4 times, then count up each players’ route cards and animals to determine the winner.

Overall this is a big thumbs up, and can be played with the whole family. It actually may be my new favorite HABA game.